. Poetry from The Great In-Between

Saturday, December 14, 2024

The Succubus


 

(A lone old male voice whispers to his loyal dog)


She came at midnight

Last night

You know



As the fireflies outside in our winter garden

Glowed


In a red dress of moving red lips that whispered of new dreams


Knocking like a reborn Anne Rice 

Lestat   


At my heart's window


Pleading with my soul

To cross the threshold and be let in


But I the stone warrior

Whose dear love had already departed


Turned and walked back into the darkness of my loneliness 


Broken-hearted


For when true love once calls

In your lifetime 


And is then suddenly recalled like a severe blow


To the amygdala


All one can do

Is wallow in limbo


For true love is like the holiest of dreams


One of The Universe's best documentaries


Memories

Forged by Brigid to endure


To be kissed 

And be revisited 


Filled with lovers and even enemies


And consumed in any rare moment


Like expensive Hennessey


Bright white candlelights

Providing light 

In a new darkness


And a holy flame to warm any soul 

On any given night


As it clings on to memories of all the people you once loved


And all the things you used to do


To ride through and hold back any new storms


Or midnight visitors like that succubus last night


It's why I put my faith in true love and Jesus Christ


(C)

Copyright John Duffy  


Anne Rice Lestat:


A famous vampire in a novel by Anne Rice.


Amygdala:


Your amygdala is a small part of your brain, but it has a big job. It's a major processing center for emotions. It also links your emotions to many other brain abilities, also links your emotions to many other brain abilities, especially memories, learning and your senses.


Source: Google


Brigid:


She is associated with wisdom, poetry, healing, protection, smithing and domesticated animals.


Cormac's Glossary, written in the 9th century by Christian monks, says that Brigid was "the goddess whom poets adored" and that she had two sisters: 


Brigid the healer and Brigid the smith.


 This suggests she may have been a triple deity.


She is also thought to have some relation to the British Celtic goddess Brigantia.


Source: Google


A succubus (pl.: succubi) is a female demon or supernatural entity in folklores who appears in dreams to seduce men.


Source: Google

Thursday, December 12, 2024

The Call to Venus

 


(A lone voice whispers as a ceremony begins)


Candles lit

In brazier pit


Like a reborn Prospero


Music playing 

As offerings 


Are lit


To summon the universe

And all who goes


To step in and commit

 

Guardians in

The Great In-Between


Guard us

And all our kin


From all unseen

Who flows


White lights

Bound

Around our homes


To guard against ghouls

From loosened tombs


Floating around like red balloons


We pray tonight 

For astral protection 

In all our rooms


As 

Candles lit

In brazier pits


Burn


With

Music playing 


As sandalwood offerings

And Christmas ferns


Are used as keys 

Of devotional angelic magic


To turn away


All who conspire 

And drink from the Devil's Urn


As we call to you

Venus

For protection 


As the Great Wheel

Turns


So

Come our sceptre-bearer of harmony 


And love to cope


Do ut de

Dum vivo 

Repleti spe


(‘I give that you may give.

As long as I live. Filled with hope.)


(C)

Copyright John Duffy


Image shared under fair usage policy 


Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Escapism. For the readers



(A lone voice whispers)


Within this deep clearing, a mystical sanctuary surrounded by the long trees of Time's perpetual symphonies, we meet.


Within this clearing, sheltered from Storms


Inside this sacred sanctuary, within this journey


A place beyond the Silence of Humanities long reach


A secret place where the bright blue Sky holds back the shadows of conflict and pains of Yesteryear


A place beyond duty, consequence, or fear.


Instead, immersed for a brief interlude


A time where we simply enjoy each other’s thoughts


Before pulling up our long grey cloaks of separation


And once again venturing forth into the cauldron of life’s ever spinning tapestries


Would you still follow me if I lit a red candle


In this final odyssey home 


Would you follow me willingly into the swirling dark


In this brief history of time


Would you grasp my coattails as we trespassed tentatively through all of life's scary parks


As we swim against all the fast-flowing tides


Will you tango and tiptoe past the Tall Man and all his worldly Minions


As we circumnavigate the globe


The new world grid and claimed it as our Dominion


For although we are but lost souls going eventually to She'ol


Would you still just blindly follow me past the awakening powers of a modern AI God


As we walk unashamed together behind the many new pale white political horses


To be wantonly unleashed within the unfathomable darkness as we surely conquer this life and all its occult forces


Forever tasked with painting new poetic masterpieces with apocalyptic energy like Vincent Van Gogh


And then every night


Hidden behind the many enemies money can ever make


Before we dream


Shall we plead to angels and owners of The Book of Secrets


To take us beyond the Black Darkness


We always see when our astral eyes open as our mortal eyes close


To use their invisible hands to tear away the rim before our ever-watchful twin pyres


To show us what truly lies beyond these Books of Lies


Everyone sometimes sees or reads from Television or Social Media 


For us to then venture into newer undiscovered lands

To a brave new world


To see the bright lights of two crimson suns and the quartet of multicoloured rainbows illuminating a purple-hued sky


A place where no one no longer dies


A paradise of ever-swirling winds of a whispered profound new Eden


Perpetually emanating from a deep divine so high up above


A sanctuary lost forever within the forgiving green reeds of a new millennium


A place to be reunited with dear old family or friends who never made it to the end


Where nobody no longer cries


To finally sit beside the Holy River to write poetry and sing 


And to joyously watch through a silver scrying mirror


As the real world slowly disappears


To walk through the luscious green grass to the Eternal City

To hear the greatest stories never told to human ears


To finally embrace a new realm free from all fears or pity

What says you


Will you come to run in this

 forbidden city 


(C) John Duffy

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Fractured by The Dancers of Dissolution

 


(A lone voice whispers)


I dreamt

As I sat alone at home

After church 


One rainy afternoon 


Dressed in my Sunday best

Thinking after you left


We were like two rare windblown autumn leaves


Meeting on a winter's tree branch


By chance 


Hypnotized within that first magical glance 


To think we would be together 

Forevermore


Until the wickedness within the ever watching jealous world


Gathered around us

Like a wild scene at a new Feast of Bacchus


And began 

To smile and dance 

Salivating 


At the dark thought and soul replenishing ominous energy 


Linked to destroying 

Another god given religious trance


Filled with thoughts of romance 


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 


Foundation of the piece.


Have you ever experienced a situation, when everything seems to be coming together in a relationship, then tragedy, suddenly strikes?


Image shared under fair usage policy 

Monday, December 9, 2024

Are you a follower of trying to be Sagacious?


Are you a follower of trying to be Sagacious?


(A lone voice whispers)


Here's to you

The readers, writers and poets in whatever field


Always remember

Seeking further knowledge is a gift


It's how we all grow in whatever we do


So never yield and constantly look for more ways to lift


Even if it means entering the long hours into a lone graveyard shift 


Keep searching like a metaphorical Indiana Jones or Lara Croft


For a treasure to help those who might be drifting in seas 


Where hope seems not to exist 


And who might just need something to darkness resist


Title: 

Self-Knowledge Knowledge


Do you believe in absorbing the esoteric linked to living 


The supernatural impressions linked to just giving 


To help clear your own pathways to find ways to deliver poetic prayers 


To those struggling with just living 


With any mental or traumatic depression's


To then walk down life's many metaphysical runways


Like a young Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel or an inspired


Paul Poiret


If so

Because I believe 

In you


Always be optimistic


For true belief

Lies in all you do


To help transform your soul

Into a sage or mystic


Allowing you to chase rare stars and wild Middle Earth dreams


To bind mistakes 

To white feathers 


To then throw them into Healing Fires


For their old powers over you 


To in rising grey smoke 

Retire


As you learn

Which new bridges to

Cross


And which old bridges

To burn


For 

Sacred Self Knowledge 

Is ubiquitous 


A chimera


A conjunction of wild beasts

Roaming wild


Living life through

Nine letters


Like a follower of being sagacious


Which to the child of the Revived


Can never be 

Denied



(C)

Copyright John Duffy


Sagacious:


Having or showing acute mental discernment and keen practical sense; shrewd:


Socrates, that sagacious Greek philosopher, believed that the easiest way to learn was by asking questions.


Synonyms: perspicacious, keen, sharp, acute, judicious, intelligent, clever, discerning, sage, and wise.


REVIVED: 


Refreshed, renewed, reborn, energized, resuscitated, recreated, and regenerated.


Sunday, December 8, 2024

The Letter to Sophia

Press play.




Some whisper 

In secret occult circles 


About these last days of 2024


That humanity will fall in unruly petulant desire


Consumed and devoured by a blazing infectious fire 


But what happens to you and I


Your mind and mine 


Do you still shiver inwardly at the vibrational thoughts of my words 


Do they bind you

Submissively 

To always return 


Doomed forever 

To hovering above my prose 


Created in my version of Michelangelo's poetic studios 


That screams to be heard

With wide eager eyes


Like a love-struck 

Hummingbird 


Do you still tremble like when we first met 

In Downtown Manhattan 


Talking for hours and wanting the warm caress of loquacious re-introductions


Of newer verbs 


Opening mystical golden gates to strange supernatural realms


And their guile to bind us together 


Like love-struck Siamese twins


Creating welcomed sins 

Of dried intellectual sweat and sweet mysterious tributaries 


Of deep-seated 

spiritual yearnings 


That once made your mind so damn wet 


Tales of the unknown 

Light and darkness 


Filled with movement or stillness


Sovereignty or loneliness 


New flames of innermost desires


Contained in unspeakable words or unfamiliar names 


As our Zisurru


Poetic stories to be set asunder 


In the footfalls of Zeus's approaching 

Apocalyptic thunder 


To burn new hurricane lanterns in imaginations darkened 


Halls of Fame 


To live in the hope 

Of a new life


An everlasting dance

With a drop of a wild transmigration 


As our new Nexus 

To savor in your mouth


Like an intense-tasting holy communion wine


A strong touch of such wantonness 


Your voracious soul needs 

To carry to all empires 


You may visit 

In the North 


East

West or South 


As it swallows new stories with ravenous greed


Will we survive 

Still together in 2025


With such

Intellectual thoughts


You might still whisper and silently ask 


You and me 


Does 

Will it last


Vibrate in echo chambers and dreams whilst waiting


For the midnight call on 

New Year's Eve 


When we gather to sing pagan songs of King Solomon 


Counting down from 10


As we fight back the encroaching darkness 


With shining drunk Astral eyes as our Athame


Our sacrificial knife 


Inwardly praying to always believe 


Under the sharp eyes of the Winters Midnight Sun 


Which for so many lost souls 

We know 


She will still shine 

ever brighter 


As she quietly watches and grieves 


As they collect their angel wings as they are quietly summoned to leave


Who knows my child 


Everlasting hope and

Peace could arrive as one


So we could conquer this new normal and continue to rise


Or it could all go wild

And turn into a new dark nuclear history 


Where dreams and people 

Are consumed and defiled 


As good and evil 

Battle for victory


And apart we may have to survive 


On mean streets 

As quantum tattooed


Vaccinated slaves or unvaccinated exiles 


In a New World Order

Called a Fool's Paradise


Without

Any known borders 


But either way, 

know this


May your spirit guides 

Lead you to continued health and safety 


Across all fast-flowing political wars 


Water's

Famine or disorders


So in 2025


We can share our much loved algorithms 

In all our holy quarters 


So shall it be


What will be 

Will be


For we two are blessed with real eyes


Opened 

To see


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 

Image courtesy of Pinterest.


 

The Pact

 Press play 




(A lone voice whispers)



You know

Who you are

If this reaches you


The one 

I still love at the core


Lit inside 

Like a divine cathedral candle


Forevermore


So let the serpents

Come 


For like Moses

I'll stand strong


My mighty rod

Will open up a new road

To Damascus 


Guided to you

My own Euonymus alatus


Who still burns me 

Inside

So much


With such love

My soul cries


For although our paths 

Are divided by fate


By vultures and lions

Which prowl 

Hidden 


Restless

Unseen

Just outside our spiritual gates


Ours is a sacred pact

Sealed when we first met 

At eighteen 


One 

No fowl knoweth


And which the vultures and lions


With eyes green

Hath seen


And it's why they prowl

For they know


We have been endowed

To love each other forever 


By The Almighty Flame

From The Great In-Between


(C)

Copyright John Duffy


Saturday, December 7, 2024

Need inspiration?

 



(A lone voice whispers)

I've met you before

You know


When you were young and wild

Before the world corrupted you

And your soul defiled 


I was present when you were born


Just hiding my true form

As I wait in here

In the shadows


Watching you act around and perform


Before you come home

To me


The eternal eyewitness 

Beyond the norm


So 

Live your life

Explore and experience all you can


Before you meet me again

And read after me


My Lord is my guide

I shall not want more

Before I die


He takes me through all doors as he rebuilds me to be whole

For my salvation is his only goal


Temptation shall call and bother me not 


For my Lord 

Regardless of my choice of faith

In who I believe 


Like a divine thought

Shall show me the way


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 


Image shared under fair usage policy 



Rebirth



 It's the weekend.


So here's a brief distraction for those needing something to read and absorb.

Salute.


Q:


What made you write poetry?


Was it an unconscious calling?


A need or just a natural progression of self-expression?


Or maybe even the 5 stages of post-traumatic growth from a break-up or bereavement?


Or just a need to change?


In my opinion, there is no midlife crisis if this term comes up.


It's just an awakening.


An awakening to a new way of life from the deep slumber of the old


Through perhaps one of these

All been told


A: A deeper acknowledgment of living.


B: Interactions with nature, family, friends, and strangers.


C: Brand-new eyes to see your own pathway.


F: A means to rebuild your mental strength.


Or even

E: Spiritual enlightenment 


My answer was post-traumatic linked to all 5.


Someone crossed over and experiencing the eventual demise 


Of their memory over time, in many. 


A thought suddenly appeared out of the Ether.


When my time comes, will I disappear only to reappear twice a year?


It whispered

Write.


Write books 

Create music

Poetry 


Anything 


Create an extension of you

To stay within the throes of Time


Don't just be a jaded memory visited on your birthday and at Christmas 


When people remember 

Why they miss us


So here's a memory of that ethereal conversation 


Recounting those thoughts from my flux


Title 

Rebirth


Child of mine

Who hears my calling


The strong 

The weak and maybe you 


The newly fallen


Will you be one of my prose soldiers? 


To help thaw out those whose hearts are now borne frozen


While trying to survive


Swimming in seas 

Of the Torn 


Amongst the Sloven


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 


Definitions of sloven:

noun: a coarse obnoxious person


Sloven in this creation represents, a myriad of negative Russian dolls.


What do Russian dolls as this metaphor mean?


It could 'mean' the many negative situations, carefully compartmentalized in an embodiment of a physical form


One encounters in everyday situations.


So, from A to E, which one will you pick?


Have a great weekend and hopefully, you enjoyed this brief distraction.


Salute.


Friday, December 6, 2024





 Sorrow comes in many forms 


Like a devious thief in the night 

A kleptomaniac who'll happily steal joy for pain


From parents

Lovers

To children


Friends and family


Have you heard him casually whisper your name?


Title 

Sorrow


(Mr. Grief whispers)


Do you want to experience pain?


Then


Fall in love

And let me break you down

Again and again


From birth until death 


When you wake up one day and only memories 

Remain 


(C)

Copyright John Duffy 


Images shared under fair usage policy 

Memories